Solar metadevice with enhanced absorption, scattering, and spectral control

R. M. Osgood III; Y. Ait-El-Aoud; S. A. Giardini; N. P. LeGrand; M. Okamoto; A. Luce; V. Liberman; L. Parameswaran; R. Kingsborough; M. Rothschild; S. Kooi

doi:10.1117/12.2273748

26 October 2017 Solar metadevice with enhanced absorption, scattering, and spectral control

R. M. Osgood III, Y. Ait-El-Aoud, S. A. Giardini, N. P. LeGrand, M. Okamoto, A. Luce, V. Liberman, L. Parameswaran, R. Kingsborough, M. Rothschild, S. Kooi

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 10343, Metamaterials, Metadevices, and Metasystems 2017; 103430Z (2017) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2273748
Event: SPIE Nanoscience + Engineering, 2017, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Lightweight, portable solar blankets, constructed from thin film photovoltaics, are of great interest to hikers, the military, first responders, and third-world countries lacking infrastructure for transporting heavy, brittle solar cells. These solar blankets, as large as two square meters in area, come close to satisfying specifications for commercial and military use, but they still have limited absorption due to insufficient material efficiency, and therefore are large and too heavy in many cases. Metasurfaces, consisting of monolayers of periodic and semi-random plasmonic particles patterned in a scalable manner, are explored to enhance scattering into thin photovoltaic films (currently of significant commercial and military value), in order to enhance absorption and efficiency of solar blankets. Without nano-enhancement, absorption is limited by the thickness of the thin photovoltaic active layer in the long-wavelength region. In this study, lithographically patterned, periodic Al nanostructure arrays demonstrate experimentally a large absorption enhancement, resulting in a predicted increase in short-circuit current density of at least 35% and as much as 70% for optimized arrays atop 200-nm amorphous silicon thin films. Optimized arrays extend thin-film absorption to the near infrared region. This impressive absorption enhancement and predicted increase in short-circuit current density may significantly increase the efficiency and reduce the weight of solar blankets, enabling their use for commercial and military applications.

Citation Download Citation

R. M. Osgood III, Y. Ait-El-Aoud, S. A. Giardini, N. P. LeGrand, M. Okamoto, A. Luce, V. Liberman, L. Parameswaran, R. Kingsborough, M. Rothschild, and S. Kooi "Solar metadevice with enhanced absorption, scattering, and spectral control", Proc. SPIE 10343, Metamaterials, Metadevices, and Metasystems 2017, 103430Z (26 October 2017); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2273748

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